Pastors disagree about President Obama being part of events foretold in Scripturecomment (0)

January 23, 2014

Two prominent Texas Baptist pastors provided starkly different appraisals of the Obama Administration during January and both resulted in national headlines.

Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, initiated the exchange with a claim in a soon-to-be released book that President Obama’s re-election is paving the way for the Antichrist.

Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in nearby Arlington, responded with a blog saying he believes Scripture predicts the rise to power of African-American leaders such as Martin Luther King, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Fred Luter, the first black president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

McKissic said Scripture predicts the prominence of African-American leaders. He contends that Psalm 68:31, which reads, “Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God” points to an age where those of African heritage would “experience political and spiritual empowerment and renewal before the coming of the Lord within a Judeo-Christian context.”

“In this obscure verse, God was showing David something,” McKissic said. “I’m not saying this with certainty, but it appears that David was saying that descendants of Africa would have a political impact beyond Africa. David said princes shall ‘come out of’ Egypt or Africa. Africa would be their roots, but their ‘shoots’ would be elsewhere.”

McKissic bases many of his arguments on J. Vernon McGee’s reading of the genealogies of Genesis 10. McGee argues that these genealogies of Noah’s sons foretell the development of the races and mankind in history.

McGee believed the world’s first great civilization, coming out of Africa, represented descendants of Noah’s son Ham. That lasted until the time of Abraham, introduced in Genesis 11 in the lineage of Shem, followed by the ascendancy of Western civilization underway during Jesus’ lifetime.

In his book, Jeffress said that while past attempts to predict the specific date for Christ’s return were misguided, Christians can recognize prophetic events that might be taking place in the world and America’s government today.

“For the first time in history a president of our country has openly proposed altering one of society’s (not to mention God’s) most fundamental laws: that marriage should be between a man and a woman,” Jeffress said. “While I am not suggesting that President Obama is the Antichrist, the fact that he was able to propose such a sweeping change in God’s law and still win re-election by a comfortable margin illustrates how a future world leader will be able to oppose God’s laws without any repercussions.

“It is significant that the Antichrist will be able to persecute God’s people, seek to change God’s laws and usurp people’s freedom of worship and commerce without any recorded opposition.

“Prior to the appearance of the Antichrist, people will have already become so numb to immorality, apathetic and even sympathetic to the persecution of religious ‘extremists’ (which will be the new term for committed Christians) and conditioned to the government’s usurpation of personal freedom, that the Antichrist’s rise to power will go unchallenged,” he said. (Compiled from ABP stories)

EDITOR’S NOTE — How would you respond to these arguments? Email us at news@thealabamabaptist.org.